BlueMilk

I'm not young enough anymore to fly a red-eye and still be productive or alert on arrival.

I just accept that the eastbound travel kills a day, take a morning flight, have a good meal and get a good night's sleep.

The only exception would be the rare occasion when I travel to the Southeast. From YVR you generally can't get there unless you arrive at an ungodly hour which leaves no time for rest. In this circumstance I'll start with a red-eye to the east coast, but I'll still take the arrival day to rest before any important work.

maradori

+1, that's exactly what I did when I made the twice-monthly SFO-YYZ trips when mom was sick

Depart SFO at 10:30pm (because AC is never on time), arrive YYZ 6:30am

For me, there's pretty much no difference sleeping in whY or J on a narrowbody airbus. Taking the second exit row also means the person in front can't recline on me.

Not upgrading SFO-YYZ means I have e-ups to use for YYZ-SFO, when I would actually be awake (and most likely hungry too)

@cow - you should consider working for the other tech company that starts with :-: G...o.... :-: we have unlimited vacation so #1 gets taken out of consideration

canadiancow

In some senses, sure. But if you take "too much" time off, you don't get your work done, and that affects things too.

I've worked places with unlimited vacation. What I really got out of that was not caring if I leave at 3pm on a Friday.

Except now I just don't care what the policy is. If I want to fly at 5pm on Friday, I'm leaving at 3pm

YZF_Elite

I much prefer to take the evening flights out of YVR/YYC (188/124), get home late and get a short sleep at home than to take a red-eye and generally need two days to get back to normal. Otherwise I'll find a way to overnight via somewhere that doesn't cause me to lose the entire next day (eg. YEG morning flight gets me into YOW by lunchtime). Before I had kids red eyes didn't bother me, but now there's little downtime on the home front.

hazcaddy

I too am too old to do this voluntarily. However, sometimes, it's the Right Thing To Do. Bereavement travel has always dictated how upset or not I was to travel overnight...

segacs

Yeah, this. "Unlimited vacation" is great in theory -- especially for someone travel-obsessed like me -- but in practice often means that the corporate culture discourages anyone from taking vacation at all.

In a way, I prefer a set number of paid vacation days with the understanding that I can actually take them, no problem. (I'd prefer more of them, of course... In general in North America, most of us get way too little vacation time. But I digress.)

rehoult

When I brought in our unlimited policy I had to set a minimum for just that reason. Otherwise everyone would be trying to out-do each other by taking the least.

martzipan

You do what you gotta do.

I took a late night YYZ-YVR one time, which arrived later than scheduled at 2 am. This was followed by 4 miserable hours trying to sleep in the airport and then the first flight out to Kelowna. Then an hour drive to a skiing resort and a full day of riding - probably from about 10 am to 4:30 pm. I'd rate my productivity that day at 150%.

Then there was a red eye SFO-YYZ. I got bumped to J with lie flat seats, but still had a crappy time trying to sleep. This time everyone thought I was ill, so there is that.

But would I do it again? Yes and yes! I travel for fun, so work can wait

martzipan

Depends on the person and the company. I tend to take way more than the average time off, and let's just say, I make it happen. This year it looks like almost 2 months. Other people don't care and don't take it. It's all about priorities.

That said, a friend of mine has 3 weeks off by the contract, but is not allowed to take more than 2 weeks at once. What is up with THAT?

segacs

My company is sort of like that. That being said, I always take way more than that, and all at once. There are rules and then there are exceptions and then there's knowing how to work the system.

And yep, it is all about priorities. For me, saving all my spare time and all my spare cash so I can travel as much as possible is priority #1. I may not own a lot of stuff, but I've been to 50 countries and counting.

For other people, mortgage, home, dinners out, kids, etc. are priorities, and they're content with a week in Cuba or Mexico once every couple of years. To each his own, right?

ETA: This is why I'll do the occasional red eye. I'd rather be tired than waste a precious vacation day. Life's short.

martzipan

Exactly!

Some of my coworkers act surprised that I fly home late Sunday night, and then show up to work on Monday. Like, they need a day to rest or something. What do they think I'm doing in the office? I'll rest when I'm dead. Or in a meeting.

mountaingrl

We always fly YVR-YYZ on the redeye 77W or 763 (in J) to connect to morning flights south for island vacations. Flying west from YYC first means that we can actually enter into a big of REM sleep on the longer YVR-YYZ flight and we can keep sleeping on the daytime flight to our destination. Then I can still work later on a Thursday and not lose half a day for travel.

silver_halide

I actually like the 6 am departures. Well, like is a little strong of a word. But I find that getting up early to make the flight gives me a head start adjusting from Pacific time to Eastern.

With a red-eye I'm going to be useless the next day anyhow. So I'd might as well not do a red-eye, spend that second day flying, and not destroy my sleep patterns any more that I have to.

Speaking of which, I've got a 6:30 am flight tomorrow. I should probably get some sleep now.

YOWgary

I'm sure some people feel that >2wks is long enough that the absence is seriously disruptive to projects that require that person's input. I don't agree, I'm just guessing that's why.

I take a month at once, every year or so, but my deal with the other partners is that I'll flag this for them at least nine months in advance (easy to do, since vacation usually involves a points booking).

This does mean that we assign me away from projects where it wouldn't work for me to be unreachable for a month straight, and we set up an emergency e-mail address to my tablet that's never been necessary so far.

Coming back to red-eyes, I have to do 2-3 a year when it's the only way to relocate between job sites on time. It's definitely not a ton of fun, but between two hours of fitful sleep on the flight, a hot shower on arrival, massive overcaffeination, and a disco nap around 5pm, I can survive at 80% for the day after.

I tried doing YVR-YYZ redeye in J earlier this year, and found it just wasn't worth either the cash or the eUps, for what amounts to 3.5 hours of sleep, best case. To each their own.

Kraafish

Once/Twice a week usually on AC 156 in Y (I know terrible), but it's definitely not worth for J, you don't get much sleep, or amenities. Flying Y when you exhausted and just passed out is a much better deal for me atleast.

I just like to travel cheap, so cut hotel cost in YYZ and onward to MSP/MKE